Our first snow here in New Jersey may have been a light dusting that melted quickly, but we’re taking the opportunity to celebrate winter with this warm, spicy, and boozy Scandinavian drink. Glogg literally means “to glow,” which is exactly what you can expect from your face after a cup or two. It packs a punch. Unlike German mulled wine, vodka and port are added after wine is simmered with spices to ensure no loss of alcoholic potency. Flavored with orange peel, ginger, cardamom, and cinnamon, the aroma is a wonderful greeting after shoveling or brushing off a flake or two as the case may be.

Ingredients

1/2 cup vodka

1 bottle inexpensive red wine, dry

1/2 cup port

1/2 cup sugar

10 cardamom pods

2 cinnamon sticks

6 cloves, whole

2 star anise (optional)

1/2 orange (zest only)

2 generous slices fresh ginger

For serving: 1 cup sliced almonds and 1 cup raisins

Directions

Add the orange peel, spices, ginger, and wine to a large saucepan. Heat on low to just below a simmer. Stir in the sugar and cover. Leave the mixture on low heat for 30 minutes, then add the port and vodka and heat until warm. Strain into a heat safe bowl or pitcher. Glogg is traditionally ladled over nuts and raisins (which you can soak in vodka while the wine simmers) in a small cup. You can skip this if you prefer not to eat things at the bottom of your glass. You can easily prepare the wine ahead of time, reheating gently before adding the vodka and port to serve.

A word about the ingredients: there are many variations on this recipe, and it may take some experimentation to create the sweetness and spice level you prefer. The port and sugar make for a sweet drink, so stick with a less sweet wine and adjust the sugar level to your preference. Star anise tends to dominate flavor wise, and may be added at the end (rather than simmered) as a garnish only for a more subtle flavor.

Remember last New Year’s Eve when you nodded off on the couch at 10 o’clock, one hand in a bag of chips? This recipe is dedicated to you. Hopefully you resolved to party. Chilling the espresso is an important step in this recipe (nobody likes a watery drink) and while the drink is sweet enough without it, simple syrup adds a nice froth on top.

Or Filthy Caucasian? Call it what you like, this recipe is for coffee fiends who believe that even coffee liqueur would be better with more coffee. This recipe was inspired by our dark roasted White Russian Iced Coffee, one of the best flavors of the summer. A shot of chilled coffee makes for a welcome addition to the classic drink. Try it with White Russian flavor or your favorite coffee brewed strong.

Ingredients

Instructions

Add the first three ingredients to ice in an a old-fashioned glass. Add the cream (or milk, or the milk-like beverage of your choice) and stir. If you prefer separation between the layers, pour the cream into the glass SLOWLY over the back of a spoon. Impress all your friends.

Infusing alcohol is a creative way to put a personal stamp on your favorite cocktail recipes and preserve the flavor of the season’s glorious fruits, herbs, and flowers. Enjoy your infusions all summer long or reward your shoveling in February with the taste of sunshine.

While fresh ingredients take days or even weeks to fully infuse, tea and spice infusions reach their best flavor fairly quickly and make a great place to start. Vodka’s neutral flavor makes it pretty foolproof as far adding ingredients goes. When choosing a base for your infusion, keep in mind that a higher alcohol content will increase the extraction power. High proof spirits (100 proof or higher) are diluted with water to a drinkable level once the infusion is complete. If you’re sticking to tea, which infuses easily, a lower alcohol (80 proof) content is perfectly fine, no dilution required.

What you’ll need

Vodka, 80 proof. We use Grey Goose, because we like to be fancy, it’s very drinkable infused, and because of the word Grey.

Loose leaf Earl Grey black tea. We also offer an organic version, but conducted our experiment with our standard Earl Grey. Both use 100% real oil of bergamot, extracted from the rind of bergamot oranges.

A tea strainer. We used the Hook Handle Tea Infuser, a simple metal strainer. If you’re using a finer cut of tea, you may want to strain the infusion through a coffee filter.

The Ratio

For every 1 cup of vodka, we added 1 teaspoon of loose leaf tea.

The Method

Add your desired amount of vodka and tea, in the ratio above, to a mason jar or other sealable container. Add the lid and shake to combine. Let it sit in a cool place, away from light. The flavor should be just right at 12 hours, but you can definitely drink it much earlier. After just a few hours the vodka will be tasty, but the bergamot flavor dominates. It takes a longer time for the black tea flavor to emerge, and it’s worth waiting a few more hours for. Enjoy it cold, strained over ice, make yourself a martini, or try it with grapefruit soda (the earl greyhound).